All Things Weak and Quiet
by bread and coal
Summary: Steve in mourning.


Disclaimer: I don't own The Outsiders.

Dedicated to anyone who's ever felt it, who knows what I mean.

* * *

There was a distinct _crack_, but the glass only shuddered. I chose another rock and let it fly, and this time it went through.

Good.

It was not a bad car. I could make this baby purr, I thought absently, as I walked toward it. Slowly, but without hesitating, I lifted the hood, just for a look. It was in surprisingly decent condition, as far as I could tell without getting my hands dirty. I stepped back, walked around the car slowly. '57 Ford, light blue, terrible paint job. But other than that, you know, I could fix this thing up in a few hours. It was in good shape.

Except for that hole in the middle of the windshield.

Except for that hole.

In the late, late afternoon, I stood next to the car and studied the damage.

This is not too late, said that calm voice in my head. I can fix this. I can take this in, replace it, maybe even tune it up a little. I can fix this.

Or, I can take the caps.

But I didn't really want them. I wanted nothing to do with this car, this house, this yard. It was all smeared over with a load of sick, sad memories. I could feel it. I could hear it. If I had any sense, any sense at all, I would get away from here as fast as possible. I knew that.

If I had any sense.

But I did have sense, some kind of sense. Enough to make me want to kill somebody, enough to keep me from really doing it. I think. I don't know, really, and that used to scare me. Back when I gave a shit.

I looked toward the house. The porch was leaning, and the broken steps were littered with all sorts of bottles. Must of had themselves a little party earlier, out on the porch. Watching the stars and talking philosophy. Right. Talk about poison. Mix me a drink of stars. Ha.

They were home. I knew they were in there.

I turned back toward the car, looked at it again. This is stupid, I thought. Idiotic.

I'd seen her earlier that day, and as usual I was stunned by slimness, the scrawny body that spewed so much hatred. It always shocked me, how someone so small could do so much damage. Could be so _evil_. To her own _son_…

She'd stopped on the street and looked straight at me, with her flat dark eyes.

I'd stopped and stared down at her, right there on the sidewalk in front of the discount store. People kept moving around us. The world went on. We didn't move.

"You-" she rasped at me, her eyes narrowed. I noted that in the past month, her hair had gone from dead black to entirely gray. Good. "You-"

Rage coated my throat, the back of my tongue.

"What?" I choked out. It was all I could manage.

"You Goddamned hood," she said loudly, "you ruined his life. You and your damn delinquent friends, if it hadn't been for you…"

And I couldn't speak. And she shoved past me and strode away, faster and faster, and I could barely turn my head to watch her go.

_Johnny_.

You can't take the guilt, Mrs. Cade? You can't take the thought that your only son died with the knowledge that you didn't give a shit about him? You want to go after the people who did? Is this a game to you, a fun little rampage of a game?

You wanna play games, Mrs. Cade?

I know a good game, I thought grimly, and shattered the driver's window. Yeah, this is a laugh. A real good time. I broke off the sideview and kicked it thirty feet. Then the headlights, the heel of my boot through each of them. They would never understand, that was the thing. They as in everyone, they as in Mr. and Mrs. Cade, the parents of a dead sixteen year old. Thing as in everything, everything, anything. They would not understand no matter how it was meant. And I didn't understand. I didn't understand why.

I slammed a rock into the left taillight. It shattered.

But they would _never_ understand, they would never, ever understand. You know. East is east and west is west, and never the twain shall meet, huh? No middle ground. My knuckles split open as I slugged the top of the trunk so hard that it dented. It was so _stupid_, it was all so damn stupid.

Breathing heavy, I stepped back and closed my eyes.

I dropped to my knees in front of the car, like it could forgive me. Glass dug into my kneecaps. I picked up a large piece and looked at it, idly wishing I had some light to reflect. Some kind of use.

He never judged anyone, Johnny Cade, not once in his short sad life. And every day they told him he was worthless. That gets to you. Nobody can take that. And he wasn't built for that kind of shit anyway, but he never, not once, judged them for it. I couldn't stop thinking about how he came home to this, he called this home, this was his yard with the dead grass and dirt and one gaunt, strangely bent tree. I couldn't stop thinking about him walking up those busted steps, into that hole of a door, with his denim jacket and worn out boots. I couldn't stop picturing it.

And the rust-colored stains on his jacket.

I'll tell you something, my father may be a bastard and maybe I can't stand him, but if I was taking the beating of my life twenty yards away from my own house, he'd damn well do something about it. I wouldn't want him to. I don't want his help, ever. I don't want anything from the bastard. But he would try. I know he would.

But Mr. Cade, Mr. Cade, Mr. Cade…he did not give a shit if they'd killed Johnny. If I ever forget that day, kneeling next to Johnny's body and looking up, across the lot, and seeing him standing there on the porch. Unmoving.

With the piece from the windshield, I slit the left front tire.

That's what happens when you beat a dog too much. It either dies, or it turns on you. That's a law of nature right there, and it goes for humans too. Goddamn, does it ever. You know, it may be the one thing I am absolutely sure of. It just may be.

I smashed the rock through the passenger side window, and made it better. It had been too whole before. Now, though, now it fit right in with the rest of the world.

Good.

I closed my eyes again, but it was no use. I heard the screen door swing open and slam shut, a string of curses. I bowed my head to accept them. Then I rose, slowly, and lifted my head.

The middle-aged man, tall, dark, and handsome, your perfect picture of the fairy-tale prince, the archangel of darkness, came roaring out of the front door, and I knew what Johnny used to know. This was what it all came down to, then? A roaring bull of a drunk, raging straight at me?

Good.

I went toward him slowly, watching my boots kick up dust in this dirty yard, this dirty street. I passed the twisted tree and met him halfway. I felt the adrenaline beginning. I was ready. This is what should of happened years ago. A lifetime ago, literally, an entire sixteen years. That poor kid. That poor kid.

He stopped, unsure, as I slowly approached him. He wasn't used to people coming toward him, I guess. "You drunk? What'ja do to my car, you damn kid?" He demanded, starting toward me. I didn't move. I couldn't move. I never wanted to move again.

A low, dark voice, barely mine, answered him calmly. "I made it fit in."

Mr. Cade stared at me. "You stupid son of a bitch, what the hell-" Then he thought the better of reasoning and came at me, fast for a man his size, and he was swinging, roaring at me, and I drove my fist into the soft flesh below his ribcage, our shoulders jarred together with a _thud_. He doubled over, jerked back upward, had me by the neck. He swung.

I heard my jaw crack as I went down, felt it snap out of place. I heard the cloud of dirt puff up around me as I slammed into the ground. Isn't it weird, how pain is always new, even the old familiar kind.

I was up again, and noticed suddenly how far beyond the darkening house, the sky was streaked with orange and red, blinding colors. The sun was going down. You know the day destroys the night, night divides the day…I'm losing it, I thought slowly. I can feel it leaving.

_Good_.

I was silent. Anger always rips at my throat and leaves me silent in a fight. We collided again, and I was striking him in the ribs, over and over and over. This was the man who killed his son. This was the reason Johnny was dead. He was hitting me back, but I didn't care. Didn't matter anymore. He was stronger than me, he was a full-grown man, but I knew and it didn't matter. I didn't want to stop hitting him because if I stopped hitting him then this was it. He would win and leave me there in the dusky yard, alone, blank. And this can't be it. Can't be.

Because if this is it, if this is it, I don't want to be sane anymore.

My nose cracked. He broke it. But that's been done before. There was nothing to fear, because there's nothing he could do to me that hadn't been done before, and by somebody a lot more important to me. I twisted half around, turned, and used the momentum to slam my fist against the left side of his face, sending him stumbling backwards. He was down, and it was my chance, and I knew it. Right then, I could send a boot through his ribcage, I could end him.

But I realized, suddenly, that I didn't _want_ to.

I wanted help. I wanted him to help. And suddenly I wanted him to talk to me, to tell me he missed his kid, missed my buddy, wished it hadn't happened. Are you sorry he's dead? I'm sorry he's dead. I'm so sorry. I wanted him to understand. I'm so sorry. Jesus God, I'm so sorry…

He hit me on the jaw again, and pain blurred over me, but I stepped back, I didn't want this, I didn't want to hit him anymore. It was so useless. It was all so useless. His closed hand smashed into the side of my head, and I felt my body buckling backwards, and wondered wildly if Eliot was right. This is the way the world ends. Not with a bang but a whimper. Not with a bang but a whimper. But I couldn't bring myself to whimper. I couldn't.

He looked like Johnny. I could see him in my head, I could see him like he was right in front of me…Johnny. Johnny. Johnny listening to my problems, my stupid shit. Johnny catching one of Pony's terrible passes. (That kid could catch anything within ten feet of him. He could of made varsity.) Johnny asking if I was going to run. Johnny understanding how I felt about my father. And not judging me for it. Johnny listening silently.

Johnny in the lot, his eyes flickering open, his throat convulsing, and the blood…everywhere…

And I was on my knees, digging my hands into the dust, pounding it back into the ground, howling.

"_Why?_" I was screaming at the man in front of me, screaming like an animal, in a voice I didn't know, "_Why_?"

He leaned back, staring at me, eyes wide. "My…car…"

I stared back, utterly confused. It took me a moment to understand what he was talking about, and then I remembered. I started to laugh, rasping, low in my throat. I had actually been expecting him to know what I meant. I had actually been expecting some sort of answer. I really had.

It was just so stupid. It was just all so stupid, I couldn't help laughing. I sat there in the fading sunlight and stared at the dirt mixing with the blood in my hands, the pieces of the mirrors gleaming, the blood red streaks in the sky. I laughed. Because it was either that or cry, and there's no point in crying. And I do not cry.

* * *

I walked slowly down Rose Avenue, ignoring the looks. Turned the corner of Tillman, heard someone call my name. I didn't stop.

"Steve!" There was a tone of command that made me stop automatically and turn.

Darry Curtis was standing on the sidewalk. "The hell happened to you?" he demanded, coming up beside me.

"Cade."

"What?"

"Went after Cade," I muttered, holding my jaw.

He stared at me for a moment, trying to figure if I was being serious.

"That," Darry said, in a tone he reserves usually for his brothers, "was a damn fool thing to do."

Well. There you have it.

He was giving me that icy-eyed look. He was worried, and wasn't that nice of him? I narrowed my eyes. "I knew that before I did it."

He didn't say anything, so I turned and started walking again.

The last of the sunlight was almost gone, there was only a tinge of pink and blue in the west, barely worth looking at. My boots were scuffing along the sidewalk, and it was the loudest noise in the world right then. Just that. We didn't speak as we walked.

I said nothing, but I knew if he wanted to, he could understand it. Anyone can understand it. Anyone who knows the feeling of having a hole where your soul should be, who has been broken from the inside out. Anyone who has ever tried to defy the pain with rage and done some sort of terrible damage and thought _good, good, good!_ like it would help, like I could convince myself, like there's any such thing.


End file.
